The Dictionary of Lost Words(6)

‘Dress?’

‘A bit short.’

‘Too tight?’

‘No, just right.’

‘Phew,’ he said, wiping his brow. Then he took a long look at my hair. ‘Where does it all come from?’ he muttered, trying to flatten it with his big, clumsy hands. When red curls sprang between his fingers, he made a game of catching them, but he didn’t have enough hands. As one lock was tamed, another escaped. I began to giggle, and he threw his hands in the air.

Because of my hair, we were going to be late. Da said that was fashionable. When I asked him what fashionable meant, he said it was something that mattered a lot to some and not at all to others, and it could be applied to everything from hats to wallpaper to the time you arrived at a party.

‘Do we like to be fashionable?’ I asked.

‘Not usually,’ he said.

‘We’d better run, then.’ I took his hand and dragged him along at a trot. We were at Sunnyside ten minutes later, just a little out of breath.

The front gates were decorated in As and Bs of every size, style and colour. Colouring my own letters had kept me quiet for hours in the previous week, and I was thrilled to see them among the As and Bs of all the Murray children.

‘Here comes Mr Mitchell. Is he fashionable?’ I asked.

‘Not at all.’ Da held out his hand as Mr Mitchell approached.

‘A big day,’ Mr Mitchell said to Da.

‘A long time coming,’ Da said to Mr Mitchell.

Mr Mitchell kneeled down so we were face to face. Today there was enough oil in his hair to keep it in place. ‘Happy birthday, Esme.’

‘Thank you, Mr Mitchell.’

‘How old are you now?’

‘I turn six today, and I know this party isn’t for me – it’s for A and B – but Da says I can have two pieces of cake anyway.’

‘Only right.’ He pulled a small packet from his pocket and handed it to me. ‘You can’t have a party without presents. These are for you, young lady. With any luck you’ll be using them to colour the letter C before your next birthday.’

I unwrapped a small box of coloured pencils and beamed at Mr Mitchell. When he stood up, I saw his ankles. He wore one black sock and one green.

A long table was set up under the ash, and it looked exactly as I’d imagined. There was a white cloth covered with plates of food and a glass bowl full of punch. Coloured streamers hung in the branches of the tree and there were more people than I could count. No one wanted to be fashionable, I thought.

Beyond the table, the younger Murray boys were playing tag, and the girls were skipping. If I went over, they would invite me to play – they always did – but the rope would feel awkward in my hand, and when I was in the middle I could never keep the rhythm. They would encourage, and I would try again, but there was no fun for anyone when the rope kept stalling. I watched as Hilda and Ethelwyn turned the rope, counting the turns with a song. Rosfrith and Elsie were in the middle, holding hands and jumping faster and faster as their sisters sped up. Rosfrith was four, and Elsie was just a few months older than I was. Their blonde braids flew up and down like wings. The whole time I watched, the rope never stalled. I touched my own hair and realised Da’s braid had come loose.

‘Wait here,’ said Da. He walked around the crowd towards the kitchen. After a minute he was back, Lizzie at his heels.

‘Happy birthday, Essymay,’ she said, taking my hand.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To get your present.’

I followed Lizzie up the narrow stairs from the kitchen. When we were in her room, she sat me on the bed and reached into the pocket of her pinny.

‘Close your eyes, me little cabbage, and hold out both hands,’ she said.

I closed my eyes and felt a smile spread across my face. A fluttering danced across my palms. Ribbons. I tried not to let the smile fall; there was a box of ribbons beside my bed, overflowing.

‘You can open your eyes.’

Two ribbons. Not shiny and smooth like the one Da had tied around my hair that morning, but each was embroidered on its ends with the same bluebells that were scattered across my dress.

‘They ain’t slippery like the others, so you won’t lose them so easy,’ Lizzie said as she started pulling her fingers through my hair. ‘And I think they’ll look very nice with French braids.’

A few minutes later, Lizzie and I returned to the garden. ‘The belle of the ball,’ Da said. ‘And just in time.’

Dr Murray stood in the shade of the ash, a huge book on the small table in front of him. He tapped a fork on the edge of his glass. We all went quiet.

‘When Dr Johnson undertook to compile his dictionary, he resolved to leave no word unexamined.’ Dr Murray paused to make sure we were all listening. ‘This resolve was soon eroded when he realised that one enquiry only gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to scratch was not always to find, and to find was not always to be informed.’

I tugged on Da’s sleeve. ‘Who is Dr Johnson?’

‘The editor of a previous dictionary,’ he whispered.

‘If there’s already a dictionary, why are you making a new one?’

‘The old one wasn’t quite good enough.’

‘Will Dr Murray’s be good enough?’ Da put a finger to his lips and turned back to listen to what Dr Murray was saying.